Mumbai

Qatar Airways will not buy a stake in Jet Airways as a substantial portion of the debt-laden Indian carrier is held by Etihad Airways, whose owner Abu Dhabi is an “enemy” of Qatar, its CEO Akbar al-Baker said on Tuesday.

Abu Dhabi is part of the United Arab Emirates that cut ties with Qatar in 2017 over accusations of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges. The UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain have banned Qatar Airways since June of that year as part of the dispute.

Weak economic growth and low inflation numbers released recently seems to have created a headroom for the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to consider changing its monetary policy stance from caliberated tightening to neutral. However economists remains divided on opinion if the MPC would cut interest rate in the February monetary policy on elevated level of core components such as health, education, household and personal goods.

Swiss multinational investment bank UBS sees the best risk-reward coming from private corporate lending banks, rural-focused names and IT stocks while it finds infrastructure, industrials, small- and mid-caps unattractive after evaluating various scenarios after the general elections.

Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who worked with him on his 2018 film Sanju and the filmmaker has denied the allegations, terming them "false" and "malicious" and aimed at destroying his reputation.

In an article on HuffPost India, the woman, who calls herself "an assistant", alleged that Hirani sexually abused her more than once between March and September 2018. She detailed her allegations in an email dated November 3, 2018, to Hirani's frequent collaborator and Sanju co-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

Private sector lender Bandhan Bank on Thursday reported a hit in profit growth for the December quarter with a 10 per cent uptick at Rs 331 crore due to the provision for its IL&FS exposure. The microlender-turned-bank set aside a whopping Rs 385 crore in provision for its exposure to the troubled infra financier, which dented its profit. The bank did not disclose what’s its exposure to the crippled infra major, though.

Foreign portfolio investment could come back to the Indian capital market this year on the back of improving macros and outlook, said a report.

With oil price falling, rupee stabilising and developed markets slowing--leading to a dovish US Fed stance and weakening dollar-- as well as hard landing expected for China, 2019 looks relatively brighter and better for India, said the report by Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund on the 2019 outlook.

The Reserve Bank on Thursday deferred the implementation of the last tranche of Capital Conservation Buffer (CCB) by a year, a move that would leave about estimated Rs 37,000 crore capital in the hands of banks.

This would help banks increase lending by over Rs 3.5 lakh crore by leveraging ten times of the capital.

"It has been decided to defer the implementation of the last tranche of 0.625 per cent of CCB from March 31, 2019 to March 31, 2020," the Reserve Bank said in a notification.

Loan exposure to the troubled infra financier IL&FS continued to depress Indusind Bank's earnings for the second quarter in a row, as provisions for this account has led to the lender on Wednesday reporting a sharp decline in profit growth in the December quarter.

The bank managed a paltry 5 per cent increase in net income at Rs 985 crore for the third quarter of the fiscal year on the impact of a Rs 255-crore provision on its IL&FS exposure, which had yanked down its bottomline growth to a tepid 4.6 per cent in the September quarter as well.

In a sudden development, Rajesh Sud, former managing director and CEO of Max Life Insurance, one of the front-runners to head Yes Bank, has backed out from the race making Rajat Monga, senior group president of financial markets at the bank as the top contender for the post, sources told Financial Chronicle.